


Aries Sun, Capricorn Moon

by BeignetBenny



Series: It's Always Something verse [2]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Astrology, Azula is a Good Sister, Child Abuse, Flashbacks, Gay Zuko (Avatar), Generalized adult themes but not enough to really be mature, Hair has meaning like lots of it, Homophobia, Lesbian Azula (Avatar), M/M, Nightmares, Ozai (Avatar) Being a Terrible Parent, Past Mai/Zuko (Avatar), Sharing a Bed, Sokka and Zuko are endgame in this but sokka doesn't appear until the end, Underage Drinking, Zuko's Scar (Avatar), Zuko's hair, and yes it's from ozai, but like not in the way you'd expect it but it's still there, gay stereotypes discussed, heavy discussions of gender expression and sexuality, technically in the middle of a get together but they aren't actually together yet, yes that's actually discussed heavily in the plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:41:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26274268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeignetBenny/pseuds/BeignetBenny
Summary: Aries sun, Capricorn moon, Libra rising. Zuko was eighteen and he knew better. He was eighteen and he was numbing. He was eighteen and he was scared. He's eighteen and a half when he wakes up in the arms of someone who actually cares.Or; Zuko's eighteenth birthday is the worst 24 hours of his life
Relationships: Azula & Mai & Ty Lee, Azula & Zuko (Avatar), Azula/Ty Lee (Avatar), Jet/Zuko (Avatar), Mai & Zuko (Avatar), Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)
Series: It's Always Something verse [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1810435
Comments: 28
Kudos: 117





	Aries Sun, Capricorn Moon

**Author's Note:**

> Although the end of this takes place in the middle of Chapter 6 of I've Seen Better Days (which uh.. may be another day before it posts if not sometime tonight) But the rest takes place two weeks before the events of that story :)  
> I also recommend listening to Devil Like Me by RKS and immediately following it up with Cold Love also by RKS for this fic

Aries sun, Capricorn moon, Libra rising.

Ty Lee had carried a large book, bound together with gold thread and embolden lettering, into the Hiranuma Estate when they were tweens. A sleepover that he had hijacked. At least that’s how Azula always spoke about it. Ty Lee had said he was invited because he wasn’t like _other_ _boys._ Mai refused to comment on the subject and shook acetone out onto a cotton pad to erase her prior work.

A large book bound together with gold thread and embolden lettering. A deck of pink cards that made fate seem cute and endearing. Wands, Swords, Cups, and Coins. Because pentacles were threatening.

Pentacles meant the devil, Azula mocked.

Pentacles meant money, Mai had corrected.

King of ~~penta-~~ _coins._

King of Coins reversed, Death, Nine of Swords.

Ty Lee didn’t explain the meaning but Mai had leaned over and mumbled “Death isn’t as bad as you think.” in a way that really meant ‘ _But it’s not great either.’_

It was translatable enough. Ty Lee had brought a little packet that came with the deck to describe the meaning. King of Coins upright meant riches, when reversed it meant financial instability. Death was change. But of course _Death_ was change, _everything_ about death was change. Even the King of Pentacles and riches and gold had been diminished to a few spare nickles and quarters clinking together in tailored suit pockets.

Nine of Swords meant nightmares. A man sat up in bed, hands pressed to his face in tears, his wall decorated with blades. For a moment, he genuinely considered changing his wall decor. He was fourteen and an idiot. He was fourteen and he knew better. He was fourteen and casually flipped to the page on Two of Swords. 

Swords crossed over a woman’s heart, in flowing white robes and a ribbon around her eyes. It spoke of a challenge ahead and an unsure path. If Ty Lee hadn’t dropped the deck when Azula tossed a sodalite at her, he wondered if that card would have shown up next.

A large book and gold edges, a deck of pink playing cards with meaning, a pamphlet about crystals, a planchette and a piece of wood.

A sleepover that he had hijacked because he was fourteen and alone.

Ty Lee asked when he was born. She knew the answer, it was his birthday after all. She asked for the time. She already knew that too. Early April at dawn.

Aries sun, Capricorn moon, Libra rising.

By all means, it meant jackshit to him, but it seemed important to her. Therefore, it became important to Azula.

Aries sun, Gemini moon, Scorpio rising.

Ty Lee was a Libra. Mai was a Virgo.

“Aries and Virgo can be pretty good together,” The youngest of them all had teased. As if it wasn’t _her_ that said he wasn’t like other boys earlier. As if his wrists weren’t limp in Mai’s tight grip as she painted his thumbs black and his pointer fingers red. He was fourteen, he knew better.

He also knew that Azula would take that match to heart. Make it her own. She wouldn’t admit to it until she was sixteen. Mai would be seventeen and know better. Ty Lee would follow because she loved them both.

Aries sun, Capricorn moon, Libra rising.

Ty Lee liked talking about Libras. Libras were childlike with an old soul. Libras had yang qualities. Libras were love. Libras were polar to Aries.

“It’s bullshit.” Azula flipped through the pages harsher than necessary. She did everything harsher than necessary.

“What does that mean for me?” His nails were drying, and he would have smudged them with nervous fingers running over silky surfaces if it wasn’t for Mai still holding onto his wrists.

She had said _brave,_ _daring,_ and _ambitious._ She insisted on _passion_ and _practicality._ She assured him that _all_ people born under his signs strived to prove themselves.

His vibes were theoretically confident. His nature, supposedly rebellious. His demeanor was allegedly dismissive. Fake smiles. Fake waves.

“Our father is a politician,” Azula said, moving the planchette without Ty Lee watching. Playing the demon and the ghost. A habit that stuck with her. “That’s just expected of him. Now, do me.”

Aries sun, Capricorn moon, Libra rising. He was fourteen years old and knew better.

Aries sun, Capricorn moon, Libra rising. He was fifteen years old when his father lost the second time. The election had been rigged. Uncle had moved to the city. Mother had gone missing. She had left years before, but he was fifteen when the phone lines cut.

Aries sun, Capricorn moon, Libra rising. He was sixteen and he liked a boy. Not on purpose. Not really. It wasn’t love, or lust, or the desperate craved intimacy that a queer boy coming of age needed. An older man. If seventeen was older. Stronger. If standing up for something made one strong. Smarter. If having his own thoughts and actively saying them made him so. He snuck on and off of campus, leaving love bites hidden under school uniforms. 

He met a friend then too. Short cropped hair, an ever present smile. Aang from the foster home. Aang with the social worker who’d send letters to the Hiranuma Estate, insisting there was a way out through eastern religion and a home for boys. Aang who asked to play as if they weren’t too old for that. He had a boyfriend and a friend. He had a _something_ and a _something else._

He had a secret. Secrets of his own weren't allowed in the household. Father could have them. _Did have them._ Literal and theoretical skeletons in closets of wings that he wasn't to enter.

Aries sun, Capricorn moon, Libra rising. He still had a friend, still had a boyfriend, barely had a father. A stern look and a timer of thirty minutes. No, that had happened at seventeen and a half. Seventeen was a cruise in the Carribeans. Seventeen was his silence bought on a weekend vacation. Seventeen was a fruity beverage in a large glass in the middle of the ocean and a girlfriend. And that girlfriend’s girlfriend.

Mai painted his nails again. Ty Lee acted as wingman. Azula toured the country with Father, because she was necessary. Because she didn’t speak out. Because she was in love with two women but didn’t say it. Because her phone background wasn’t a lover in a compromising position while the lover was still an anonymous figure.

Seventeen and a half, a stern look, thirty minutes on the clock, a rushed bag, ignoring the bruises formed only to get more once at the secondary location. But those were forgivable. Those were explained away at an ER at five am with Aang by his side and his (now familiar faced) boyfriend asleep in what was _technically_ their bed.

Cancer mercury, Scorpio venus, Aries mars.

Aries sun, Capricorn moon, Libra rising. He was eighteen.

“What?” He was eighteen.

“I’m sorry, Zuko.” An indignant sigh and a knowing look. “My hands are tied.”

 _"No…"_ He was eighteen.

"No?" Indignant turned idle. Idle turned disgusted.

"You're not sorry." He was eighteen.

Aries sun, Capricorn moon, Libra rising, Cancer mercury, Scorpio venus, Aries mars.

He was eighteen and he needed to die. Wanted to run.

Needed to run. Wanted to die.

“You lost, Zuko,” Zhao said it like he was stifling laughter. “We did our best but-”

“I-” He tried to speak, but wasn’t at all surprised when nothing more came out. He had lost. He was eighteen and he had lost. He was eighteen and he was drafting a will in his head. He was eighteen and he’d have to go back to his father.

“I aged out, didn’t I?” Zuko asked as soon as he got to Uncle. Uncle who was just as worried with heavy but forgiving hands on his shoulders. Mumbling something that Zuko couldn’t hear over the blood pumping in his ears. “We waited too long. The case got dropped because I’m too old. I wasn’t working enough hours. They didn’t believe me when I said I lived with Jet. I wasn’t making enough money. Should I have gotten a fucking ring?”

“Zuko-”

“It’s emancipation! It’s just _fucking_ emancipation!” His voice clawed to get out of his throat. Scratching past the lump that had formed in hopes of damming the tears in place. “I just don’t want to have to ask him for shit anymore. It wasn’t a restraining order. It’s barely a fucking case. I did the bare minimum because I’m a good fucking son and I don’t want them to know _I’ve been a goddamn punching bag for eleven years._ I just want to be my own person!”

“Nephew-”

“I can’t wait until I’m twenty-one, Uncle! _I won’t make it until I’m twenty-”_

“There you are,” A grating and familiar voice. A gloat without a knock. Opening a door he hadn’t been allowed in the same corridor of, in fear of an incident. Opening doors that Zuko had previously closed. Lock and key, down the hall, to the left. “It’s been a helluva week, hasn’t it?”

Right. _A politician._ Zuko almost forgot after having the man stare daggers openly for the last five days. Ozai had forgotten his reputation. Either that, or he didn’t care because court reporters wouldn’t capture his glare. They didn’t need the proof. They needed a clean bill. They needed to make it to their families by the end of the night. 

Helluva week was an understatement. Helluva week had been when Zhao handed over private pictures from Jet’s phone. Helluva week had been a broken hand. Helluva week had been when his mother disappeared.

He was eighteen and he was preparing for the worst.

“Yeah,” Zuko agreed with a nod as his father approached him. His suit was pressed stiff and he walked like a single crease would kill him on the spot. If only it were that easy.

Zuko wasn’t sure whether the next words out of his mouth were supposed to be an apology or defiance. Or worse, a simple statement. Something neutral because he wasn’t strong enough. Something neutral because he wasn’t clever enough. Something neutral to go with the roses he planned to go atop his birch wood casket with a silk interior and glossy finish. He planned on being cremated, something ironic but not in a way he knew yet, but the idea of the choice was inviting. “I’m eighteen.”

“Happy birthday,” Ozai said as he closed the space between the two of them. Uncle’s heavy hands were replaced with his baby brother’s. He said _Happy Birthday_ with the same delivery as a guilty convict would stand on a podium and admit to killing a man. Admit to killing plenty. Admit to killing so many that they’ve lost count and that they have the money for others to kill for them. Zuko had been paraded around the companies. Apologizing for malpractice. Blasting soundtracks to keep the angry protests at bay. He knew the drill, he didn’t know the names. “You thought I forgot, didn’t you?”

 _Of course not._ He thought. _I’m too 'lucky' to have my father forget my birthday._

“Oh shit, that wasn’t rhetorical?” It was all the defiance he could manage. A general teen angst. Drop a swear there, look his father in the eye. And by eye Zuko meant a nose bridge or prominent brow bone. Somewhere in between the eyes. Somewhere safe. Somewhere vulnerable. Somewhere where the squeeze of his father’s hand didn’t remind him of a dislocation incident the first time mother left.

“I planned a dinner,” Ozai spoke again, that time only letting the slightest of edges peak through. “Caldera. That hot pot place you like in Potsdam.”

Had it been any other time, any other place, and any other person, Zuko would have been impressed that he remembered. The fault was that it was a college town where everyone despised Ozai. The fault was that one of Jet’s roommates worked there on weekends. Zuko couldn’t imagine it. One day scratching out the eyes of a capitalist pig on the wall of a boyfriend he only had because they hated the same man in nearly identical ways’s apartment and the next is spent wining and dining with that very pig. Because Zuko had lost his fucking case.

 _Not a case._ His mind provided him. _Not a case because you weren’t strong enough. Not a case because there was nothing to report. There was no reason to call police on an estate that was already circled with cops in either motorcade fashion or to clean up a mess with the help of Ozai's blood money._

“That was very kind of you.” Zuko said instead, the general teen defiance melting into something else. Something quiet and submissive. Something Zuko rarely let peak through. Something Zuko let slip because he was thinking what song he’d want to be carried away too.

Helena felt a little on the nose, but it fit the color scheme. Maybe something instrumental. He liked Phantom. The dramatic organ would certainly do _something._ All I Ask of You would play in memory of the one time they let his mother, a third tier understudy, go on as Christine Daaé for the first act. It was pathetic that those were the two options that came to him for a theoretical funeral. If he were to die the least he could do was have a better taste in funeral music.

He was suddenly on edge about the way he was being perceived. Was his weight balanced equally on both legs? Nails clean and blank?

A neutral toned backpack. Black slacks, black belt, maroon button up. Long sleeves rolled three quarters. He had been dressed for the occasion. Something he could get away with winning or losing in.

Ty Lee had hummed Rainbow High under her breath as she picked the outfit for him, only singing aloud when the high notes came up. Comparing Pattie Lupone to Madonna. Zuko only half paid attention. He had only been paying half attention for…

_Father was still looking._

“I said that was kind,” He repeated. “Thank you, Dad. Is it just us or-”

“Everyone’s in town,” There it was. _The fake charisma._ A casual lean back with spread arms. Like he was a normal dad. Like he threw a football around on the weekends and pulled out the grill on holidays. “I thought it would be best to make a night of it.”

Ozai knew he would win and Zuko just had to accept that. It might as well have been a goddamn victory lap. One that was premeditated but could have been scratched out in red ink without a second thought. A quick trip around the world. A jet called to drop them off at the second house in the Catskills. One that could be chalked up to a misunderstanding when the news stations got to it. One where they’d paint the eldest faggot the villain. 

Aries sun, Capricorn moon, Libra rising.

Aries took charge of situations. Aries were certain. Aries had bigger personalities and even bigger ambitions.

Zuko just wanted to survive the night because he couldn’t decide if he wanted to be buried with his hair up or down.

He was eighteen and he was numbing. Not fully. Not in a way that he’d look back at the night at eighteen and a half without remembering. He was eighteen and he wished he had numbed faster but by eighteen and a half he wished he hadn’t numbed at all.

Even still, he was eighteen and numbing.

Eighteen and holding his limp wrists straight as he lined his lids with liquid ink. It was something he could have as his own. A symmetry he could claim as long as his hand was steady. He looked like his father but in the details he looked like his mother.

Feminize the bastard. Queer the clone. Make his father hate him just a _little_ bit more.

Zuko didn’t even like makeup. He loved it on others. He liked the way Ty Lee’s cheeks sparkled and the way Mai’s eyes were precise. He even applauded Azula’s extensive line of liquid lipsticks and pencils she could sharpen by looks alone. But on himself it looked ill-placed. It took too long to stop hating himself for him to particularly enjoy the art of it. Or the comfort. Or how Jet would squint when he noticed it, reach across and rub hard at the skin until it smudged.

“You’re pretty,” He would say. “You don’t need it.”

It was never about _pretty._ Zuko hated _pretty._ He hated being brought down to nothing but a sexuality and a presentation and a glare from his father. He hated that if he went down the stairs and sat at a table in front of his father with the graphic eyeliner that Ty Lee had done on herself, Ozai would reach across and strangle him. The flowers would still be roses. The casket would still be birch, but it would stay closed for the ceremony.

What Zuko hated more, was that if Jet had done the same thing, he would have played along. Rolled his eyes back, let his hair drop along bare shoulders. _“I hate him too.”_ Panted out in shallow breathy moans. _“I hate him too.”_

Maybe, just maybe, Jet and him weren’t the best together.

And maybe the eyeliner wouldn’t work with the outfit.

He wiped away at it with a wet paper towel in the grand bathroom of his father’s en suite. He only used it because the mirror was bigger. Not that he enjoyed looking at himself. Or doing his makeup. Or dressing for fifteen minutes only to wear the same outfit.

There was a corner deep to the left almost obscured by a decorative ficus in a matte black vase. Scribbles from his sister were written in the shitty lip liners that she’d toss after. Father never noticed. He didn’t monitor his only mirror like he did their phones. It was the ounce of normalcy and privacy Zuko had. The four inch by six inch spot where Azula could be a normal little sibling.

_You’ll be okay._

Or, maybe even a nice one.

He wiped it away with the same ferocity he did wiping at his eyes. They left his lids red and inflamed, the mirror smudged and tinted red. Which only meant they’d ask if he had been crying.

He hadn’t. He was too distracted picking between three buttons down or two and if he’d wear his hair up or not. 

If Zuko had the time, he would have done it nicely. He liked the intricate braids Ty Lee would attempt on Azula and herself, but he could never have the dexterous skill required to recreate them. Nor did he have the patience to part his hair and separate the bangs only to curl them; they'd fall in a way they wouldn’t naturally. But Mai was nothing if not precise. She ran her fingers through his hair once he made it down the steps and pulled it into a ponytail. Bobby pinning overgrown bangs in place as they made it to the car.

“You’re growing out your undercut?” She acknowledged, more so than asked, as the chauffeur of the ‘children’s’ car closed the door behind them. Azula sat, her legs crossed at the ankle and the knee, across from them. Ty Lee sat next to her, her head on his sister’s shoulder like a well groomed cat. Groomed in all senses.

“Zuzu, your _date_ for the night just asked you a question.” Azula prompted, rolling her ankle with a few chilling cracks.

“I’m not doing it on purpose,” He answered with a nod. “And _I hope I’ll be okay, too.”_

Azula’s icy demeanor didn’t return until they were inside the restaurant. Azula and Mai shared no more than a few half hearted kicks to the ankle. Gentle bumps just to remind each other that they were still good. Whatever good meant in their relationship, something very different to the active and open caring that Ty Lee required. Azula was a people person, she could adapt for them. The only issue was that Zuko knew Mai better. Knew that she liked attention she wouldn't ask for. He also knew Mai didn't love Azula like Azula loved Mai.

Aries sun, Capricorn moon, Libra rising. He was eighteen and had his not girlfriend to his right. His Uncle to his left. His lawyer a deeper left. His sister a deeper right. A publicist near across leaning right. An assistant near across leaning left. His father right across from him.

Ty Lee was there too, but she squeezed a chair in from an underfilled table to their over crowded one. Ozai, or Lo rather, didn’t account for two girlfriends and an Uncle. She accounted for a man and a princess. Ty Lee all bubbles and pinks and champagne glitter on the apples of her cheeks. Ty Lee with manicured acrylics with two kept short. Ty Lee with an obvious obsession with the heiress beside her.

Jet with a messy two tight button down. Jet with a nervous habit of running his hands through his hair. Jet who’d steal the toothpicks from the dispenser just so he’d behave at the table. Jet who was notorious for wandering hands and bathroom trips.

Yes, it was an act in front of Ozai. It was a dance they had planned while sitting on the only full bed in a three bedroom apartment fitting six. He would lean in close and whisper in Zuko’s ear, Zuko would let his eyes flutter closed, a hand would slip between his legs. Then they’d excuse themselves to the handicap stall and waste fifteen minutes on their phones because Zuko refused to spend ten minutes on a piss soaked floor. Bruising his knees and taking _everything_ on the off chance Ozai would actually walk in. He didn’t have a death wish. Jet didn’t care whether he lived or died. He was an activist. He liked making a statement. He was an anarchist. He liked the attention whether it was positive or not. He liked to stir the proverbial pot.

But Mai took his space, Uncle was there, and Ty Lee pulled up a chair.

He was eighteen and he should have known better but he hadn’t eaten in three days and was living off of caffeine, anti anxiety medication, and sheer spite. Maybe a cigarette or two. He had lost his pen at Jet’s apartment and had to go the extra mile for a fix. But he hated cigarettes. Hated the drama of exiting a building and lighting up. Hated the fact that his father would more often than not join him on balconies to smoke with him. And the taste wasn’t great. The taste second hand wasn’t exactly phenomenal either.

Jet smoked. Jet chewed on toothpicks. Jet bit his nails down. Jet cracked his knuckles and enjoyed decadence. Fuck, they had gone to Caldera almost every weekend. Milking Longshot’s friends and family discount for anything they could.

But instead of Jet and Longshot and Aang and Smellerbee. It was Zuko, alone. Zuko alone with six other people. Alone in his body. Uncomfortable in his skin. Eyes still stinging at the rough removal of eyeliner and throat still tight at the knowledge of his loss.

Iroh put a hand on his shoulder and ordered for him.

“I’m not a child,” Zuko said under his breath as he gathered the menus from the others as they bantered without him. “I’m eighteen.”

“Eighteen’s a child in New York,” Zhao grumbled, as if his loss and Ozai’s gloating finally caught up with him. “That’s how we got in this shitshow in the first place.”

“We’re celebrating, Zhao,” Ozai countered. “I have my son for another three years at least.”

Zuko couldn’t decide what was worse, hearing his father say _son_ with a hideous layer of love coating it. Or thinking about everything he had been called up to that moment.

_Queer the clone._

“Is that what you wanted, Father?” Zuko put his elbows on the table and made a show of crossing his legs. “I could have visited on weekends. I’m usually pretty busy with Jet in-”

Something dark passed through Ozai’s eyes. “Maybe so,” Appetizers were placed in front of them, but Zuko couldn’t bring himself to grab for the dumplings under his father’s gaze. Between the eyes, along the nose, on the brow bone. “Tell me, how do you think that would have worked?”

“What?”

“With the weekends.” Ozai made a vague motion with his chopsticks. “With the _emancipation.”_

Zuko almost regretted not wearing eyeliner or a pink dress or braiding flowers into his hair. Then the least he could do was weaponize his _abhorrent_ sexuality to turn the conversation away from the day's events. Then he could forget he was legally trapped with his father for another three years. Then maybe he’d be kicked out again and he could go through the process without the help of a judiciary system and a rigged jury.

“I have a job.” Zuko managed, matching his father’s motion with grabbing at the dumplings and sipping casually at the Thai iced tea that had been ordered for him. The job was helping manage Jasmine Dragon’s social media, but it was his. It was full time. He got paid Manhattan minimum with benefits. Fifteen an hour, forty hours a week. He didn’t need the money but he needed the freedom. He needed the proof that he could hold his own.

“You don’t have a home,” Ozai countered in between bites. “Aside from the estate.”

“I live with Jet.”

“Not legally.”

“I have mail that goes directly to the apartment. I’ve got clothes there. A toothbrush. Checkstubs.”

“And you didn't think to invite him?”

“I-”

“Call him.”

_“Da-”_

_“Call him, Zuko. That’s an order from your father,”_ His father wiped his face with a three hundred thread count linen napkin. Staining it with ginger, pork, and sesame oil. He acted as if his voice hadn’t shook the table or got the attention of those in the booths surrounding them. His publicist barely looked up from her phone. It would be one of those nights. Something bad and unreported. Something cleaned up so fast Zuko wouldn’t even remember if it happened. A lockscreen that still had a rather compromising photo. “I'd like to know what treasonous things your _special friend_ chose to do instead of spend his night celebrating you. It's what we're all here to do.”

Azula’s acrylics, filed down from the coffin shape she had gotten them as; with a matte black topping the usual cherry red, clicked against her glass of pineapple juice. “On the contrary,” She said, her voice oozing the same false syrupy sweetness that Father’s had. Except hers could pass as honesty. She could pass with real sympathy. She was _abhorrent_ and _disgusting_ and _weaponized her sexuality_ too. She just made it work for her. People liked lesbians, they got things done. Men found comradery in the theoretical share of their predatory gaze. Her power grab was easier because she could play masculine in the area where Zuko lacked. She was the son Ozai always wanted. They both resented Father for those words, but she still took pride in being _wanted._ “I just came to watch.”

 _He wouldn’t hurt you while I’m watching._ Her eyes said over the glass. _I mean, he absolutely would and I would let him. But not near as badly._

“Azula?” Ozai broke the line of communication and her eyes darted to daddy dearest. His fists were balled on the table and his eyes were squeezed tight. If Zuko didn’t know better, he would have clocked the millisecond long panic that passed through her eyes. But he did know better. He was eighteen and he knew his little sister. Knew she was conniving and clever and talked Father into letting her date Ty Lee openly with a twenty page powerpoint after getting out of inpatient conversion therapy.

It worked because the last slide was the medical reports of electricity shooting through her nerves. _That’s abuse. You shouldn’t have hurt me. I’m not Zuko._

They had… _moved on from that._ The reports were buried. Azula was fifteen and knew the way to their father’s heart. Azula was fifteen and knew better. Zuko was seventeen and spent the holiday vacation away from school with his boyfriend for three weeks straight. It was the only time Azula had ever been served the short end of the stick. Because Ozai cared about her, but Zuko could have freezed on the streets. He tried to cure Azula. He tried to kill Zuko.

A broken wrist and hickies down his chest and three weeks in bed was supposed to kill him. Daily group sessions and bible verses and bi weekly jolts of lightning to the cerebral cortex were supposed to cure her.

They weren’t even Christian.

“Yes father?” Azula answered as she put her cup down, her motions fluid and feigning comfort. That’s all the last year had been for them. Feigning comfort. Zuko was supposed to get out and she was supposed to follow.

“Take your friends to the bar,” _Friends?_ She mouthed the word and looked over to Ty Lee first and then Mai. _Multiple?_ The air got hotter. _Friends_ meant that he was recognizing Mai as one of them. _Friends_ meant the contract of one girlfriend could have been broken. _Friends_ plural meant it would just be Uncle left. And Uncle rarely stood up to his little brother. Not to his face. He was passively protective. Wouldn’t let brother fight brother. “You can all get whatever you want. Put it on my card. This is men's work.”

Father made a pointed gaze at Zuko, legs still crossed under the table. More around the fact that he had forgotten they were twisted and less around the comfort he found in the position. “Or the closest thing to it.”

Zuko uncrossed his legs. Ty Lee used her nails to slide the platinum card off the table. Mai squeezed his thigh reassuringly. 

Azula made no motion to move.

“Closest thing to it?” She challenged. “Then I don’t see why I should leave.”

“Zula,” Ty Lee put a gentle hand on her shoulder, like a hummingbird afraid of landing fully. “C’mon.”

“What?” Azula barely looked back at Ty Lee, instead choosing to stay in a stare down with Father. As if there wasn’t only one person between the two of them. As if her safety from father had been his theoretical love as opposed to Zuko’s distance across the table and his sub seven minute mile. _“I’m watching.”_

Ozai didn’t need to say her full name to snap to attention. It was a look. Just a look. One that Zuko couldn’t see the terror in. A quirked eyebrow, a downturned corner of his lips. He was just disappointed. Zuko got that look more often than not.

Nevertheless, she relented. Ty Lee put her arm around Azula’s waist, Mai’s stilettos made pleasant clicking noises along the sticky black tile.

The room got warmer as the trays were put in front of them. Aromas of spicy ma la never made him nauseous before. “Call him.” Ozai insisted again, and without hesitation, Zuko took out his phone.

He was eighteen and he knew better.

In his defense, he was seventeen when he made the image his lock screen. Blissed out eyes, sleepy smiles, it was obvious what had just been done in the dark. Jet was an activist. Jet was an anarchist. Jet left his cloud unlocked for two hours to prove a point. To prove that Zuko wasn’t worth the trouble. To prove that even without knowing who he was, the vicinity would give him away. And all Zuko got out of it was a death threat and the public knowledge of what he looked like post sub par orgasm.

They were under the covers, it wasn’t a big deal. Jet knew what he was doing. He wanted a reason to resent it. Zuko did too. And yet they didn’t break up. It was easier to be angry at the same person then show true affection to each other. It was easier for under the cover pillow talk to leak and catch attention for five days straight and claim it with pride then look his father in the eye and admit that he had slipped.

_Hello, this is James Magiting Garcia-_

“It’s his work phone,” Ozai interrupted. “It’s a Friday night, Zuko. He wouldn’t answer a work phone.”

Something in Zuko was just thankful that Ozai didn’t bring up the name. Full names had power. Power that Ozai didn’t need over Jet because his life was just as exposed as Jet the activist as James Magitang Garcia. James was the one with a chip on his shoulder because of the atrocities done generations back. _A fucking Hiranuma? Dating some Filipino guy? We’ll call it reparations._ James was teasing and slipped kisses and knew his history. But Zuko wasn’t dating James. He had at one point. He was dating Jet. Cold Jet. Calculating Jet.

 _‘It wasn’t white men who created science, they weren’t even the only ones to kill god. You guys are colonizers too’_ Jet. It was said after Ozai had appeared on TV, speaking in a way that got a stunning amount of white supremacists interested. Find a common enemy. Become stronger. If they thought it was nice to hear that sort of thing from a white guy, try a forty something Japanese-American with a long line of familial war crimes who should have known better.

Aries sun, Capricorn moon, Libra rising.

Zuko called Jet’s personal number.

He was eighteen and should have known better.

But Jet was nineteen and a half, and did.

_Hey, this is Jet Garcia. I’m not at the phone right now. Leave a message after the beep._

Ozai slid a finger across the screen and ended the call before a message could be made. _“Pity.”_

Zuko excused himself to the bathroom. If it was any other night, Jet would have tagged along. They would have played up something only to instead chat about nothing. But it was just him. Him and a mirror and the gender neutral family bathroom.

Aries sun, Capricorn moon, Libra rising.

Capricorn was an earth sign. Capricorns needed to take action. Capricorns had expectations thrust upon them.

Aries sun, Capricorn moon, Libra rising.

He had been eighteen for roughly twelve hours and he looked like he had aged fifty years.

Zuko took out the bobby pins, sliding them securely in his belt loops. He pulled his hair out of his ponytail and finger combed through the thick inky curtain. He let his eyes flutter close at the feeling. It was an intimate act in itself. It was a part of him. He hadn’t had short hair in years and if left unstyled he looked like he walked off the set of the Ring. Or like Cousin It.

Or like his father.

They had the same widows peak. The same face structure. The same build if Ozai’s 6’0 tower could compress into a comfortable 5’6”. Zuko was never _mini me._ He was always compared to his mother. Not like Azula, who was a carbon copy of Ursa but was only seen near Ozai. The tabloids liked to call her his twin. His clone.

 _Both clones are gay, then._ Zuko and Azula had laughed at that when they got tipsy at the beach house one of the many times Father sent them away. _That’s the gay agenda._

He was almost smiling at the memory when there was a knock at the door. One that was opened with unsaid permission. One that was consensual over years of trust and Zuko’s dire need to be alone but not _too_ alone.

“What did we miss?” Mai’s familiar neutrality damn near made him melt. He needed the gentle nothingness. He needed the forgiving void.

He would have cried if it was Ty Lee. She would have said some bullshit about chakras and auras and tarot and astrology. She would have mismatched every religion and practice she stumbled upon to find an answer. To find individuality. A personality _a la carte_. Then she would say she’s an empath and she would cry too.

So, Mai was easier.

“Nothing,” He said over his shoulder as Mai walked to stand to his right. He looked at her through the mirror. The beachy curls she had earlier had already fallen because of the heat of the restaurant. Leaving something messy but purposeful. Punk but classic. She knew what she was doing. “Jet didn’t answer.”

Mai smirked, something small and almost unnoticeable. “Jet’s smarter than I thought.”

“Yeah, I guess he has some will to live.”

“And you don’t?”

Zuko thought it over, not to answer her question, but to just hear how her voice reverberated in her chest and remember how her lips felt on his. He didn’t want to kiss her, he just wanted to be kissed. Something good. Something honest. A platonic tongue swiping across closed lips because they loved each other but didn’t _like_ each other. She was always the more dominant anyway. “I should have a close casket funeral, don’t you think?”

“Why’s that?” She humored, turning around and leaning against the sink.

“I want to be cremated before the ceremony.”

“You’ve been good for the last three years, Zuko.”

“I never said I’d do it myself.”

Mai hummed in acknowledgement and turned her gaze down. “Azula told me you lost.”

“I told you too.”

“I know, but she told me first,” She shrugged. “She technically told Ty Lee, but I was there too.”

“You’re always there too.”

“C’mon, you know I’m no one's first choice.”

“Mai-”

 _“Ah,”_ She held out a finger. “It’s shit out there, let’s just have our mutual pity party.”

Zuko nodded and went back to running his fingers through his hair. The bobby pins weren’t going to make it back. Even with Mai’s keen eye directing him towards fly aways. It wouldn’t be smooth and perfect like it was supposed to be. Like how _he_ was supposed to be. “I don’t know the details. I just know that they countered your emancipation request with the threat of conservatorship.”

“Zhao is in the habit of lying to me.” Zuko said simply as he turned on the cold tap and splashed his face in hopes to shock himself out of the dreamy state he had found himself in. If the details weren’t so clear, he could pass it off to a night terror. He would snap up, drool clinging to his flashcards. Zhao and the judge would shoot him a dirty look. But, in the end he’d win his freedom.

“I’ll be an optimist for your sake,” Mai reached around his torso and pulled a bobby pin out, relenting to fixing it herself. She pulled a comb out of nowhere. Probably tucked away in some secret pocket of her bell sleeve or in the compartment she had sewn into her bralettes that she would hide money or a spare cat keychain that she sharpened past legality in when they went out. It was a rat tail comb, barely the length of her palm. “Maybe you’ll be okay.”

“Optimists are usually a little more positive than _maybe.”_ She pulled his hair back down and combed through it, letting it fall over his shoulders. 

“A realist?”

“I could use realism.”

“Maybe you’ll be okay,” She continued, slowing down at a knot towards the end and using the pointed edge of the comb to work through it meticulously. “There isn’t anything damning. He’s taken you out to dinner. You know he always throws money at you when he knows he’s messed up.”

“Usually it’s roses.”

“Your father liked to give you roses?”

“No, he liked to give my mother roses and I remind him of her,” He looked down at Mai when she paused. “It’s just the eyes I think.”

“Oh?”

“Ozai has fucked up a lot, if he paid me back for everything, the estate would be in my name,” Zuko scoffed. “No, it’s roses when I’m caught with Jet publicly. It’s buying my silence when he hits me. It’s been a minute.”

“He was playing nice for the courts.”

“I know, that’s why I hate this,” Zuko let his head drop down, he examined the checkered pattern of the floor. “This feels planned.”

“Zuko, it’s your _birthday.”_

“I know but-”

Another knock at the door.

A libra sun who knocks the beat to _“Shave and a haircut”_

“Don’t come in,” Mai deadpanned as she turned back to the door. “We’re having sex.”

Ty Lee opened the steel plated door with a pout. Her long braid laid over her shoulder and her large gold hoops reflected the little bit of light the bathroom held. “Spirits, Mai! Don’t say that!”

“Hi, Ty,” Zuko mumbled as Ty Lee held the door open a little longer for the other Aries sun to enter. _“... And company.”_

Azula rolled her eyes and crossed her hands over her chest. The lapels of the jacket had been steamed to perfection and her maroon blouse unbuttoned to the third was tucked into high waisted black slacks. Zuko took a risk and turned around only to find her wearing his cherry red doc martens.

Azula seemed to notice at the same time. “Christ, have we been matching the whole time?”

“Those are my shoes.”

“And that’s _my_ feminine disposition, but you don’t see me bringing it up,” She crossed the distance and immediately started undoing the progress Mai had made with his hair. “You know we don’t have the forehead for this.”

“We?”

“Yes, we. We’ve got deep widow’s peaks. We’d look like our hair is receding,” She put a bobby pin between her teeth. “Also, since I’m here, Zuzu. Father wants you back at the table.”

“I need a minute.”

“Why?”

“Because my boyfriend stood me up,” Azula tucked the bobby pins back onto his pants, that time stacking them along his front pockets as Mai combed down the too short hair at the back of his neck. “I’m understandably upset.”

“Of course. You look absolutely inconsolable.”

Zuko let his hair get fixed. Let Azula futz with his bangs. Let Ty Lee fold up the sleeves. Let Mai step back around to the front of him and wipe away the black stains of Louboutin iron oxides that had pooled in the wetness in the corners of his eyes.

He was presentable and the girlfriends left hand in hand. He was presentable and had accidentally matched his lesbian younger sister. He was presentable and watched as Azula reapplied her lipstick through the mirror, making no show of leaving without him.

He was eighteen and he knew better, but his sixteen year old sister knew best.

“What made you choose my side tonight?” He dared, as the door swung close and stood shoulder to shoulder with his little sister. “I doubt you’d get anything out of it.”

“History books are written by the victors,” She spared his reflection a glance. “But neutral academics get the most details.”

“Your point?”

“Well, I planned on trying the same thing in a few months,” She swiped a finger along her lips, turning the deep red into more of a stain than paint meticulously put on over thin skin. “This is me learning what you could have possibly fucked up, so I don’t do it. I’ll get us both out.”

“Are you going to follow through with that?”

“I…” Hesitance sounded foreign coming from Azula. She capped her liquid lipstick and tucked it into a pocket on the interior of her jacket. “I know you abhor gallows humor, brother. So I don’t think I’ll say what I was thinking.”

“It’s not all bad,” Zuko admitted. “I’ve been planning my funeral all day.”

“Open or closed casket?”

“Depends.”

“On what?”

“You’re the one who knows dad best,” Azula knit her brows together in thought, tucking overgrown bangs behind ears filled with constellation piercings. “What do you think? Logistically?”

“It’s moments like this that I remember we’re siblings.”

“How so?”

“That’s the exact gallows I intended to joke about,” She turned towards him fully, clasping her hands together and letting them swing against her thighs. “The way I see it, and the way the night’s going, he’s given you a choice. Jet didn’t answer, so you won’t get mauled in the streets because Mr. Oral Fixation couldn’t control his speech. You aren’t wearing a tie, so I think strangulation is out of the picture. I don’t trust the medal ladles and boiling stock though.”

_“Shit.”_

“Right?” Azula glanced down to his pocket and stole a pin to tuck her bangs into place. “If we leave, you might survive the night.”

Zuko nodded. He knew that. He knew that if he could get the last word and bolt that he could make it out. He wanted to die, but he needed to run.

_He could survive the night._

_He could survive the night._

Aries sun, Capricorn moon, Libra rising, Cancer mercury, Scorpio venus, Aries mars.

Cancer in mercury discussed vivid memories and emotional thoughts. Aries in mars brought up debatable topics and fiery comments. Scorpio in venus meant he loved hard and rough but would never admit to it. It meant he was jealous. It meant he couldn’t forget or move on.

He was eighteen and he knew better and he could survive the night.

He made it out of the restaurant unscathed. Even the comments shot his way were nothing worse than usual. Jet was no longer a topic of conversation. Nor was emancipation. Mai mentioned college and a possible psychology degree. Ty Lee humored Lo’s suggestion of cosmetology school before admitting she had considered enlisting. A shock to Azula. A shock to Mai. A shock to Zuko. A delight to Ozai.

He made it to the cars unscathed. Only a few flashes of DSLRs blinded him, and that only lasted for a moment. Azula was still hurt by Ty Lee’s admission. Ty Lee covered it up by saying she wouldn’t leave. That Azula couldn’t be left alone.

Mai and Zuko shared a look.

No one’s first choice and the chance of not making it the next several hours. They were the perfect match. The others. The silent few. Why hadn’t they worked out?

Right, Zuko had lied. Zuko had lied and she had the audacity to go to Azula, who lied even more.

He had left her for Jet. For freedom. For forgetting his last name and cutting ties to the expected political marriage. Mai was a lesbian too of course, but they had faked it for two years. They could have faked it for two more. Maybe then he would have been eighteen without counting the seconds.

He made it to the estate unscathed. Sharing tight hugs from Mai and Ty Lee. Ty Lee held his hands and kissed his cheeks. Ty Lee let her waist be caught between two manicured hands while her arms wrapped around a neck. Azula was harsher than necessary with their kiss, but Ty Lee managed to smooth the edges.

_She wouldn’t leave her alone._

Mai only spared a cordial head nod his sister’s way before taking Ty Lee’s hand in her own and going back into the car.

He just had to survive the night.

Aries sun, Capricorn moon, Libra rising.

He could survive the night.

Cancer mercury, Scorpio venus, Aries mars.

He was eighteen and he knew better.

He was eighteen and instead of walking the length of a castle to the gallows, he was called into the kitchen. Instead of placing his head on hard warped wood and waiting for a blade to drop, he sat on metal warped into regal shapes. Cushioned with leather and cotton. Instead of an executioner, it was his father putting a teapot on the left front electric eye of the stove. Azula sat at the table as well. Lipstick having been wiped away by kisses and nervous swipes across her mouth with the back of her hand.

The teapot shrieked when the water boiled, a melody overtop the beat created by filed down acrylics on mahogany, two pairs of squeaky doc martens on marble flooring, and the sound of Father fastening and unfastening his gold Rolex on his wrist.

It would be one of those nights.

He turned from the stove, the teapot on the far right eye now, the left front still glowed red.

It would be one of those nights.

Ozai finally removed the Rolex, set it on the counter by the fake oranges and apples in a wide ceramic bowl. He twisted his rings around. The ones with stones facing his palms.

Azula removed her bangles and earrings, added them to the pile.

Zuko took off a gold chain from his wrist, something that used to be his mothers, but left his stacked rings on.

Aries sun, Capricorn moon, Libra rising.

Aries sun, Gemini moon, Scorpio rising.

He didn’t know when or where his father was born so he couldn’t do the quick calculations in his head. He knew it wouldn’t have mattered.

He was eighteen and he wanted to run. Needed to die.

Wanted to die. Needed to run.

“You're familiar with Arthur Miller, right Zuko?” Zuko knit his brows together. He reached for both ears, feeling for jewelry that may make the night harder. Only two studs along the lobes. Cubic zirconia tinted black. He took the bet and removed them. Fiddled with his rings. Made a vague motion that could be seen as scratching his nose which was actually reminding himself he had taken his nostril piercing out a week ago and would probably never get it in again.

“As much as I can be, we learned it in school but it was more a necessity than a pleasure read,” Pulled his hair down, then back up into a messy topknot. Thought about it. Took it down again. A lower bun wrapped haphazardly. It just needed to be out of the way. “I’ve always hated the Crucible.”

“Is that so?”

“It’s a witch hunt. You’re looking for someone to slip for doing the most basic thing.”

It would be one of those nights.

Ozai leaned back in his chair. Crossed his ankle over his knee. Made a show of doing it _right. “The Devil is precise; the marks of his presence are definite as stone…”_

He flexed his hand over the black sapphires in his palm. Azula choked out a laugh as she examined what she could get away with. _“The Devil?”_ Another laugh. “Father, we’re atheists.”

“Not tonight, not by the looks of it,” Ozai turned his attention back to Zuko at that. He forced a deep breath through aching lungs. “Dad? Can we talk? _Alone?”_

He was eighteen and he could have survived the night. But, he was also eighteen and he knew better.

Azula was excused before the conversation turned sour. She resented it. She expected the fight. She marched away with balled fists and mumbles under her breath. She was to pack and leave to the Catskills. She could bring her girlfriends. Ozai had said so exactly. They were to stay there for a month.

It would be one of those nights.

“You should know better,” Zuko started as he watched the steam rise from his mug. The loose leaves had settled at the bottom when the steel steeper broke, leaving him to either deal with the twigs in his teeth, or sift through the texture. “If you knew you were going to win, why did you humor me?”

“Because I’m a good father,” Ozai insisted as he poured his own glass on a crystalline saucer compared to Zuko’s earthenware with red finger prints along the front of himself at three and his mother’s around the handle. “You wouldn’t survive without me.”

Ozai was right, but Zuko knew he wouldn’t survive _with_ him either. “And you needed to prove it?”

“I didn’t need anything,” Ozai sneered as he took a sip. The last few charismatic remnants of his public persona melted away. No more fake golden eyes and tight smiles. No more common enemy. No more family values. “You should know better than to defy me, Zuko.”

“I’m not defying you I’m just-”

“Running away?”

“I’m not-”

“Empathizing with the enemy?”

_“I’m your-”_

“You’re my property,” Zuko looked up at that. Watched as his father’s hand inched closer to the gold chain on the table. Watched how he wrapped it around his knuckles. “You’re a prop.”

“Father, I’m barely a pawn to you,” Zuko forced his voice not to shake. “I could leave and you wouldn’t notice.”

“Maybe so.”

“So let me leave.”

“Is that all you want?”

“Would you let me have it if it was?”

Ozai looked at him through half lidded eyes. “No,” He downed the rest of the tea like the heat didn’t bother him and set the cup down with a sharp crack. He reached into his pocket and lit a cigarette. He looked back at the red hot stove top. “Because you’re a distraction. They like to talk about you. You’re a pretty face with a vocal personality who gets fucked by the opposition-”

“Dad I-”

“Let me finish,” He flicked the ash onto the table. The shellac began to smoke under the embers. Ozai leaned forward in his chair and offered the cigarette. “I have people from both sides who love me. Economists love what I’ve done for business. Governments think I’m charismatic. New York City, Anchorage, San Francisco, Osaka. I have an entire seaboard under my thumb.”

“I’m trying to quit.” Zuko lied as his father took another inhale, breathing out smoke and ash into his eyes.

“You’re _almost_ useless to me,” Ozai continued, a cigarette between his teeth and sleeves rolled up. A tie loosened, buttons undone. Zuko’s eyes darted to the glass doors that separated the kitchen to the rest of the house. If he was fast he could- “But then you come in, play the part of your mother. Flash those golden eyes and whore yourself out for the first man you see that hates me just as much as you do. And now you have the audacity to run? You'd be nothing without me.”

Zuko was frozen to his seat. Breathing felt forced. Smoke clouded his vision and his father’s cologne and cinnamon tea filled his nostrils. _“Father-”_

“You’ve disrespected me, Zuko,” Ozai’s voice sounded like silk. The words almost sounded inviting. The admission sounded like a way out. “You’re just like your mother.”

“Mother got out.”

“Ursa is still under my finger,” Ozai combed a finger through Zuko’s loose bangs. “It’s you and Azula who she seems to be avoiding.”

“Why would she do that?”

“Because she knows better.”

Zuko was eighteen and he didn’t.

Aries sun, Capricorn moon, Libra rising.

A hard shove to the throat followed by an even harder hit to the side of his head Sharp burning pain took over his left ear. The metal chair clanging to the ground was muted with the high pitched ringing throwing everything off balance. Zuko scrambled on the ground for a good few seconds, removed his hand from where the blow had landed, and saw more than felt the blood. His hands were stained red as he tried to get enough friction to run. Ozai stood over him. Hand still open, the gems on his fingers stained.

He barely had the time to register that his father had cheated before his father was over top of him. Large hands grabbing at hair and letting it loose within seconds. Zuko shot a leg out, knocking a knee in an awkward direction. It only made everything worse.

It was fuzzy. But it was worse.

He was eighteen and made himself forget the details. He remembered the acrid smell of melting skin. Remembered closing his eye before it could reach the burner. He remembered how his father’s fingers knotted themselves tightly in his hair. He remembered whispers of his mother, how he had her eyes, how Ozai couldn’t stand looking at him anymore, how Zuko would never leave.

Then he remembered being on the floor. The bleeding in his ear had stopped but the air burned. A stumble upwards, shaky legs like a newborn animal. Throwing his face into the sink to run cold water, to vomit, cold water again.

He somehow made it to his room. Grabbed necessities. Climbed out the window. Called Jet.

_Hey this is Jet G-_

Called his Uncle. Prayed the man’s hotel was close enough. Let the shock kick in.

He was eighteen years and twenty-three hours older when he woke up. Uncle sat to his right. A doctor was mumbling.

_“-lucky.”_

_“-recover.”_

_“-survived.”_

Something in those words felt like a cruel joke when the Doctor walked the width of the bed and stood a little too far to the left. Words were garbled nonsense and the gauze covering half his face obscured his vision. He realized it might have not just been the gauze that was doing it.

Aries sun, Capricorn moon, Libra rising.

He was eighteen years and a full day older. The incandescent lights and the bandages warped his appearance. The clammy, pale, bluing skin didn’t help. The messy knotted hair falling over his shoulders made it worse. 

Maybe he didn’t hate _pretty._ Ugly was so much worse.

The feeling of hair down his back and on his skin, smelling like sulfur and smoke and the random aloes that seeped through the bandages, made him nauseous. Made him nauseous and almost look like his father.

Zuko glanced around the bathroom, the sitting shower, the stool by the sink, back to the mirror. He averted his eyes from himself just as fast and walked out the room. He left the light on as he rummaged through a sterile compartment near the mechanics of the bed. Pulled out a packeted scalpel. Pulled out clean bandage shears. Sawed away at years and years of pulling and pretty and open threats. At knots from fingers and yanks in ecstasy. Years of growth. Years of lying to himself. Years of being compared to his father.

Aries sun, Capricorn moon, Libra rising.

He was eighteen years and two days old when he realized he had made the night without crying. Yet, at eighteen and a half he couldn’t fucking stop.

He pressed a hand to his chest, to his throat, to his face, ran fingers through hair with uneven edges. It had grown enough to touch his neck again. The braid had fallen out in the night. In the hour he had of sleep plagued by memories he would have to fess up in court. He had run as far as he could and still couldn’t get away from his father. Air caught in his throat, sleep in his eyes, a hand swatting in the general vicinity of his torso.

Zuko’s breathing slowed as he looked to his right. To a lump in the bed with thin sheets to his shoulders. To the finality of a drifting hand finally making contact. Skating down his shoulder, his chest, arm along purple veins, to his hand. His wrist was limp and twisted just enough so lips could press chaste kisses along each individual knuckle without a fight.

“Sorry…” Zuko whispered. “Did I wake you up?”

Taurus sun, Virgo moon, Aquarius rising.

Blue eyes that looked black. Abandoned nightgowns that had been claimed as a joke. Shifting to his side to keep one hand entwined while the other skirted along exposed thighs.

“No…” His voice cracked with a sleepy rasp. Zuko reached forward and took the wolf tail out. Ran a hand through untamed hair. Feather light touches to an undercut and shaved sides beginning to grow out. Pushed the strays from his eyes. “I was already awake.”

“Why?”

“Nightmare.”

“Sokka?” Zuko’s wasn’t a nightmare. It was reality. It was the worst twenty-four hours of his life that he’d relive and never stop reliving. He couldn’t look in a mirror without remembering. Couldn’t eat without thinking. Couldn’t card his own hands through his hair without feeling sick. Then Sokka would do it. He sat up just enough to reach for his scalp. Ran bit down nails along the inconsistent part. Combed through shaggy bangs. Tucked the flyaways down. Cupped the base of his neck and pressed their foreheads together. “I know you hate me but-”

“I don’t hate you.”

“But I-”

 _“Baby?”_ Zuko’s heart rate spiked at that. Like it always did. He liked the way it sent jolts of electricity through his veins in a way that felt good. Loved that it could be said in his direction. Adored that it wasn’t paired with a toothpick in between teeth or the smell of roses and cinnamon. Cherished that it was something that was his. Something new and unnassociated with everything that had happened to him.

And Sokka made it sound reverent.

“Yeah?”

“Just saying it, I think.” If it wasn’t for everything, he would have kissed him. He could have. It was dark, they were alone, they were only inches apart. He could taste the mint on his breath just by proximity.

Zuko could hold off a little longer. He could make it right. Cut off his past, run as far as they could. Sokka deserved someone without a care in the world.

They were both eighteen and a half and they both knew better than to go any further that night.

“I meant it when I said I hate sleeping alone.”

“That’s good,” Sokka’s smile lit up the room. “So did I.”

Strong arms wrapped around his body, laid him on the bed, let him role on top and tangle their legs. Sokka would sprawl in the night, Zuko knew the position over his heart wouldn’t last. It’d be broken by daybreak. Interrupted with life and family and moving on.

Aries sun, Capricorn moon, Libra rising.

Taurus sun, Virgo moon, Aquarius rising.

Scorpio venus.

Zuko didn’t believe in the stars they were born under dictating their lives, he didn't believe in much of anything, but it apparently meant they loved the same.

Maybe he’d let himself love and be loved if it was done in tandem.

**Author's Note:**

> Did I do it? Did I portray the symbolism? Did I make the dissonance between his father's love, jet's love, and sokka's love obvious?  
> The tarot cards Ty Lee was using were the [Neo Rider Tarot](https://www.etsy.com/listing/775686423/the-neo-rider-tarot-collection-the-love?gpla=1&gao=1&&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=shopping_us_confirmation_Home_and_Living&utm_custom1=e2a1a586-0f20-4ec3-96d2-ecf09231c168&utm_content=go_1707961827_63430312981_331635216705_aud-318222619806:pla-303628061699_c__775686423&utm_custom2=1707961827&gclid=CjwKCAjwtNf6BRAwEiwAkt6UQlKEQMI2_6VeuOpoamIYe0wITEkfyCAJxnWPAgbDISJ7kCOLlKsM6hoC5DUQAvD_BwE)  
> Anyway, for more Zukka content you can find me [here](https://beignetbenny.tumblr.com/)


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